A Land of Fire and Death
by Yanni Firewind
Summary: After barely escaping his own execution, Dalamus Ravel hoped to start a new, normal life in Skyrim, without people trying to kill him. But a plague of dragons and his own, developing powers soon made it clear he was to shape the fate of a nation.
1. Dragon's Flame

I do not own The Elder Scrolls, so please don't sue me.  
**  
Clunk**. My head hit the floor of the carriage, awakening me. I opened my eyes to a headache far worse than any hangover, and a bunch of voices above me, talking. This was definitely not my day. Then again, walking across the border of Skyrim at the precise time to be smacked in the head with a giant warhammer (which, by the way, is an **excellent **cure for not being able to sleep) for being…somewhere at the wrong time, or something (I really had no idea) might have implied that fact. As my vision cleared, I realized that one of the others in the cart was staring at me, and, in fact, addressing me.

"Good, you're finally awake."

Despite my bound hands (again, why? What did I do?) I managed to climb onto one of the rough benches on each side of the carriage, and responded "Right now, I wish I wasn't. What happened?"

"You must have walked into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." I turned, and saw a pair of Nords, one dressed in similar rags to my own, and one dressed like the man talking to me now, except with a gag over his mouth. I felt bad for him; I knew all too well what it was like to be gagged. I turned back to him

"Who are you, anyway?" I asked him.

"Ralof. And you?"

"Ravel. Dalamus Ravel."

The man in rags spat on the floor of the carriage, and said (rather loudly too, not pleasant with a headache like mine) "Damn you Stormcloaks! Everything was fine until you came along! Empire was nice and lazy." He turned to me" You and me-we shouldn't be here! It's these Stormcloaks the empire wants." It really comforted me, knowing that I was only here due to someone else being an idiot. NOT!

Ralof turned to him, and said, in an exasperated tone, "We're all brothers in binds now, thief." The thief grimaced, as if he didn't believe a word of it, and turned back to the gagged man, who had, obviously, remained silent throughout this conversation.

"Shut up back there!" one our captors shouted back towards us. I attempted to reply with a rude finger gesture, but failed due to being tied up.

"What's wrong with him, huh?"The thief said, ignoring the guard. Ralof glared at him, this seemed to have upset him for some reason.

"Watch your tongue. You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King."

The thief's eyes widened "the Jarl" (note: Nord word for "King". I used to think it meant "Venison", but that made no sense.) "of Windhelm? You're the leader of the rebellion." His eyes widened in horror "But...if they've captured you…oh, gods. Where are they taking us?"

Ralof replied grimly "I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits"

_**OH CRAP**_  
Sovngarde was the Nord afterlife. If it was waiting, that meant death. I didn't want to die (I still don't actually) and now I was being executed for something I didn't do. Or hadn't done. Or was going to do…I had no idea what was going on! I began to wonder if I had been manipulated by one of the Daedra again, and they had made me forget, or something. Or maybe my captors were just bloody idiots. The thief (at this point, my not knowing his name was beginning to get on my nerves a little bit) began to freak out. "No! This can't be happening. It isn't happening!" I sympathized, and was about to say so, but Ralof interjected.

"Face your death with some courage, thief." He said, glaring at the person whose name I did not know, which pretty much ended any chance of me adding my opinion, I had no desire to be yelled at by him. He turned back to Name Unknown. "Hey, what village are you from, horse thief?"

Sullenly, he snapped back "Why do you care?"

Ralof replied, grimly "A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."

He sounded far more terrified than before with his response "Rorikstead. I'm from Rorikstead." Ralof did not reply, merely sitting in silence, which I thought was rather rude.

A guard spoke up next as a town came into view, and we headed towards the main gate, confirming my worst fears "General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!" Once again, for the last time, WHAT DID I DO!A battle-hardened voice answered back from within the walls "Good, let's get this over with" in a bored tone of voice. The thief next to me began begging the gods for aid.  
"Shor, Mara, Kynareth, Akatosh, Divines, Please help me!" I looked around excitedly for a meteor or something, sent by the rest of the Divines to crush the man who had forgotten to ask the rest of them individually for help, but nothing happened. (The thought of something actually going right at this point and them helping us was not even considered.) Ralof, meanwhile, was glaring back at the Imperials with hatred.

"Look at him. General Tullius the military governor." He snarled, glaring "and it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn Elves. I bet they had something to do with this." At this point, I too began glaring back at the Imperials, or rather, at the Thalmor with them, wishing I had some rotten fruit to throw. Or fire. Fire would also work. As you may have guessed from my wishing to incinerate them, I am not particularly fond of the Thalmor, but, then again, **no one** likes the Thalmor, since they rule tyrannically over the south of Tamriel, and believe their own kind superior, having committed many nation-sanctioned murders against the Bosmer and Khajiit whose nations they rule. Ralof turned back from them, and stared at the floor as we turned a corner and approached where the cart would stop.

"This is Helgen." He murmured sadly "I used to be sweet on a girl from here. I wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in." He looked up again. "Funny. When I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe." The town was somber preparing for our deaths. I could hear and see children being ushered inside their houses, their parents making sure they would not see this.

The people of the town muttered softly as we pulled up to a dead-end wall (in more ways than one.) The thief sounded panicked as he spoke up "Why are we stopping?" Ralof sounded grimmer than ever with his response.

"Why do you think? End of the line." The guards shouted for us to get out of the cart, and he rose. "Let's go. Shouldn't keep the gods waiting for us" The rest of us rose, climbing up out of the cart, the thief making his final protests and efforts to be set free.

"No, wait! We're not rebels!" Which was a lie, at least for Ulfric and Ralof, who reprimanded him yet again.

"Face your death with some courage, thief." To be honest, his stereotypical "rawr, me strong Nord. Me hit smashy stuff with big hammer" act was starting to get on my nerves at this point, but I saw no point in picking a fight with him a few minutes at most before his death. (And, hopefully, not mine) The Imperial captain was an obnoxious and loud person, who shouted at us as soon as we got off of the cart.

"Step up to the block when I call your name! One at a time!"

"Empire loves their damn lists" Ralof grumbled mockingly as we got out of the cart. Her assistant, who did not look at all like he wanted to do this, began to call out names.

"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm." The gagged man walked over to where those soon to be executed waited, with the various Stormcloaks among the captives brought in on the other carts shouting in his defense, Ralof throwing in his own method of paying respect.

"It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric!" I wasn't sure if I should say anything, seeing as I had known him for only a few minutes where I had not been asleep, but was spared the decision by the name-person resuming his list.

"Ralof of Riverwood." With that, Ralof went over to join his leader. "Lokir of Rorikstead" (Finally, I had learned his name!) Lokir stepped forward a few steps toward the others, then broke, and sprinted past the name-callers, toward the way we had entered. The captain shouted at him

"Halt!" Which I felt like I had heard somewhere before, but he ignored her, sprinting onward

"You're not gonna kill me!" He shouted back, excitedly, as he got further away from us

"Archers!" the captain, who I had taken an instant dislike towards, shouted, and a pair of Imperial archers standing further back on the road, near him, pulled out their bows and opened fire, cutting Lokir down in the blink of an eye, a pair of arrows sticking out of his spine. She turned back to me "Anyone else feel like running!" I shook my head, and the name-caller looked up.

"Wait, you there. Step forward." I did so, and he seemed confused. "Who…are you?" he asked.  
"Ravel. Dalamus Ravel." I replied "Dunmer" I added afterward, rather unnecessarily considering my grey skin and red eyes made it a rather obvious fact. He grimaced, a pitying look in his eyes

"The gods must really hate your people, Dark Elf" He muttered, as much to himself as to me, as he turned to face his boss "Captain, what do we do? He's not on the list." A small spark of hope returned to me, that maybe I would be let go, since they seemed to have no record of me doing anything wrong, but her reply soon crushed my small spark of hope into a small, flat, red paste.

"Forget the list. He goes to the block." This time I managed a rude and insulting finger gesture, bound hands or no. The clerk (or whatever he was)'s face twitched into a bit of a smirk at that, you could see that he wasn't very fond of his boss. (And neither was I, come to think of it.) He turned back to me, addressing me yet again.

"We're sorry. We'll make sure your remains are returned to Morrowind."

"That's excellent." I replied to him "You can bury me in the volcano-blasted crater where my home town used to be!" The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the ground, my head ringing, with a certain less-than-pleasant Imperial Captain standing over me.

"You ever speak like that to one of us again, It'll be the last thing you ever do." she snarled at me "Now get up!" I looked blankly at my bound hands for a second, back at her, raised an eyebrow, and spat in her face. It flew right between the pieces of her helmet, and lodged directly in her eye. She glared at me, looking more furious than ever as she dragged me to my feet.

Grudgingly, I got to my feet, in my head swearing an oath to destroy her should I survive this somehow. Which I doubted, scanning the skies for a well timed…something to save me. There was nothing there, and I walked over, sadly, to the place where all the prisoners awaited execution. From here, I could hear the one the Imperials had called general addressing Ulfric.

"Ulfric Stormcloak. Some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use a power like the Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne." I was really going to have to read up on current events more the next time I fled my homeland as one of many refugees from the destruction of our civilization, first by meteor, then by volcano, then finally, by lizard-people. The general continued in his little you-are-at-my-mercy villain monologue, his voice full of anger. "You started this war, plunged Skyrim into chaos, and now the Empire is going to put you down, and restore the peace." As he walked away, the evil captain spoke up.

"Priestess, give them their last rites!" A priestess in...well…priestess robes standing next to the execution block complied.

"As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you…" She was interrupted almost immediately afterward by one of the Stormcloaks.

"For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with." To no one's real surprise, the priestess's reply sounded more than a little annoyed.

"As you wish." The prisoner who had spoke up walked up to the execution block, and placed his head on the execution block. "My ancestors are smiling on me, Imperials. Can you say the same?" After a brief pause, he spoke up again. "Hurry up! I don't have all morning!" None of them responded, except the executioner, who answered by swinging his giant axe of death downward, cutting through his neck and severing his head entirely. It rolled into a basket underneath the block, and the executioner kicked his body off the block.

"As fearless in death, as he was in life." Ralof commented, sounding resigned. The Captain's head turned to me, snarling (at least as much as I could tell through the helmet), and grinned.

"Next, the Dark Elf!" So this was her revenge, I quickly looked around, hoping there was another Dunmer among the prisoners that she was talking about, but there wasn't, there was just me. The clerk looked at me sadly.

"To the block, prisoner, nice and easy." I stepped up to the block, feeling sad, and a little nauseous. I knelt with my head over the block, and noticed, to my disgust, that they hadn't even bothered replacing the box with the Stormcloak's head, meaning mine would end up in the same spot.

This was it. I was going to die.

I wondered if my life would flash between my eyes, like some philosophers said it would. I wondered if I could get a few slow motion replays of spitting in the Imperial Captain's eye.  
But that was not what fate had planned for me that day. (Apparently), For, as the executioner raised his axe to end my life, a huge roaring echoed throughout the mountains, and a giant flying lizard, which I could only assume was a dragon (which was a major surprise, since they were all thought to have died out long ago) flew across the valley at a speed which should not have been possible, and landed on the tower behind the executioner. He, however, was apparently an oblivious idiot, since he did not react to the dragon perched on the tower **right behind him**. As he prepared to swing the axe, the dragon roared again, and the force of the roar stunned even the fool of an executioner, and threw the whole area into chaos. The block itself was ripped from the earth, and I was hurled flying to the ground a short distance away, as was the dead Stormcloak, who, much to my dismay, landed right on top of me. (Well, not his head) As you can probably guess, it was not pleasant. I rolled out from under the corpse, which had the unfortunate effect of more or less burying some of my face in the dirt. It was difficult to breathe, but only for a few seconds, since I was soon hauled to my feet by Ralof, who had managed to cut himself free somehow during the chaos.

"Get up!" he shouted, struggling to be heard over the chaos, panic, and death. "Come on! The gods won't give us another chance!" My vision still blurry from hitting my head (again) when I was hurled flying, I followed him, sprinting into a nearby tower as the dragon rained fire and death down around me. I kicked the door shut behind me, and Ralof slammed a table up against it as I surveyed the area. We were in a small, cramped room that now contained me, Ralof, Ulfric (who I couldn't help feel was somehow responsible for this. Well, who else would be able to summon a dragon which just so happened to show up in time to stop his execution and set a lot of things on fire?), and a pair of unnamed Stormcloaks, one of which was currently curled up on the floor, bleeding to death. Ralof turned to his leader

"Jarl Ulfric, what is that thing? Could the legends be true?"

"Legends don't burn down villages." He replied, in a tone that sounded as if you had just told him that everything that he had ever cared about had been destroyed (which made me suspect him a bit less). Another massive roar shook the tower, startling all of us still capable of movement into action of some form, even though, in the case of the uninjured Stormcloak whose name I did not know, that action was to sit down and cry like a small child. Seeing no other way out, I headed upstairs, hoping I would find something that I could at least cut my hands free with.

Another Stormcloak had been tending to some of the wounded on the second floor, but that ended as I watched, with the dragon slamming through the wall, burying them in rubble, and blasting everyone in the wreckage with a massive blast of fire, I guess to make sure they were dead. I looked out the gap in the wall, and saw a half-burnt down inn with a giant gaping hole in the roof. Ralof came charging up the staircase behind me, took one look out the window, and yelled.

"Jump!" Responding half on instinct, I did, leaping through the hole in the roof, and crashing into the floor. I heard a yell and sound which implied that Ralof had not managed the jump. I was worried about that for a minute, but an injured-sounding "I'm ok!" coming from that area ended that. I managed to roll to my feet, and crossed the upstairs of the bar which I had landed in. Fortunately, the staircase had survived, and I walked back out into the flame-blasted ruin that was all that was left of Helgen.

Once outside, I noticed the clerk (?) (I still didn't know what he really did) yelling to a small child, who was bent over a gravely wounded man.

"It's ok Haming! Come here!" The dragon landing in front of him startled the kid into obeying, and he fled behind the cover of a damaged building right before a burst of flame ended the life of whoever the wounded man had been. The kid immediately collapsed, crying, and the Soldier/Clerk turned to me.

"Still alive, prisoner? Stick close to me if you want to stay that way!" He turned to another legionnaire who had been crouched behind the building. "Take care of Haming! I have to find General Tullius and join the defense!" With that, he sprinted toward what had been an alley before the buildings near it had been destroyed, and ducked into it, shouting to me as he did.

"Keep close to the walls!" I did so, wondering why, but the dragon landed on top of the wall immediately afterward, and answered my question by not noticing us, and as, such, not lighting us on fire, instead blasting some Imperial troops who were making a final stand at the gates of Helgen, on the other side of the ruins in front of us. We sprinted through the ruins, only to see the gates blasted open by the dragon, which flew away to ravage another part of the town. A few Imperial troops sprinted out the gates, including their leader, who was shouting orders for a full retreat as he headed out of town on horseback at full gallop, but the collapse of the gates, which had been greatly weakened by the blast, ended that. The clerk sprinted left, and I followed, not knowing my way around the town, and assuming he did. (Fortunately, I was right.)

As we ran across the blasted ruins, Hadvar and Ralof crashed into each other in front of a large keep. Hadvar's eyes widened in surprise for a moment, before he snarled, half-raising his sword.

"Ralof! You damned traitor! Out of my way!" Ralof shook his head, and managed to make the two axes he had managed to obtain even more ominous and dangerous looking.

"We're escaping, Hadvar. You're not stopping us this time." A massive roar from the dragon, which had appeared overhead again, reminded them both of what was going on, and they broke off, each heading toward an entrance to the keep, and each yelling to me to follow them. I spun around to follow Ralof, as, of the two, he was the one who had not tried to kill me, but the dragon slammed into the tower, knocking it over directly at me, and I headed the other way, as I would not have been able to reach the door without getting crushed. With no other way to go, and with the dragon having spun around to fly back at me again, I decided to sprint into the tower, and hope that Hadvar did not try to kill me. I charged through the door as the dragon blasted the ground with fire, barely escaping.


	2. The Art of Hiding from Dragons

I don't own Skyrim, please don't sue me.

I staggered into the tower, barely avoiding the blast of fire the dragon sent my way as I kicked the door shut. Luckily, it held, but the fact that it had fused to the rock meant that I wasn't leaving that way anytime soon. I turned around, to where Hadvar was standing with a look that combined shock, confusion, and sheer terror into one. When he spoke, he sounded just like he looked.

"Looks like…like we're the only ones who made it. Was that really a dragon? The bringers of the End-Times?"

"No." I replied sarcastically "That was just a giant fire-breathing rabbit which just so happens to look **exactly** like a dragon." It was then that the meaning of the last thing he had said hit me. The Bringers of **WHAT?** Hadvar seemed to have somewhat recovered from his shock at this point, as he began to sound more like a soldier than a terrified clerk

"We should keep moving. Come here, let's see if we can get those bindings off." He pulled out a knife to cut them with. While I was not fond of the idea of someone whose organization had been attempting to kill me ten minutes ago holding a knife anywhere near me, I had little choice if I wanted to ever have free use of my hands again. I walked up to him, and he cut through the hand bindings, surprising me mildly, as I had somewhat expected a stab through the heart. I resisted the urge to dance with joy from being both free and not dead, and instead headed into the various corners of the room to see if there was anything worth taking with me when I left, a plan reinforced by Hadvar's next suggestion.

"Take a look around, there should be plenty of gear to choose from." Which was all the excuse I needed to grab a knapsack off the floor and began sweeping anything that seemed even slightly valuable into it. Well, I **was** broke. I also looted a treasure chest in the far corner of the room, taking a sword in case my magic failed. There was also a Legion uniform, which I put on for lack of any better gear. I turned around, to see Hadvar pull a chain, opening the door to a hallway to another part of the keep, and, hopefully, a way out without any more chances for me to be killed. Unfortunately, as I've come to learn, life isn't that nice to me generally, and my escape was nowhere near that simple, as evidenced by a couple of voices emerging from the room at the end of the hallway, which we had now come to.

"We need to get moving! That dragon is tearing up the whole keep!"

"Just give me a minute…I need to catch my breath." Hadvar peeked inside.

"Stormcloaks. Maybe we can reason with them." Yes, Hadvar, maybe we can. And maybe that dragon outside will stop rampaging, and instead settle down in the middle of the ruins for a nice cup of tea.

"We're both dressed as legionnaires. I doubt that'll work." I replied. I hate being right.

The moment we walked in, both Stormcloaks immediately grabbed their weapons. Hadvar tried to prevent combat.

"Hold on, we only want to-"but was soon cut off by the much louder (in fact, it hurt my ears a little bit.) shout of one of the Nords.

"You won't take us alive!" Accompanied by his partner's

"Freedom , or Sovngarde!" as I barely dodged my face being reduced to red paste by her warhammer. Hadvar began dueling the other one, but that still left me to deal with the other Stormcloak, who was making yet another attempt to kill me. I didn't really want to kill her, since we had both been in the situation of being about to be executed no less than an hour ago (and were only fighting each other because of how a tower had almost fallen on my head and I had needed a suit of armor) but I had little choice, and turned my flames spell on her. Her hair and cloth armor ignited, and she soon fell. I turned around to see Hadvar finish off his own opponent, stabbing him through the chest. Hadvar shook his head as he fell.

"What a waste." He commented to himself sadly, cleaning off and sheathing his sword. One of them had dropped a small pouch of gold, which I pocketed as Hadvar took out a key and unlocked a door on the other side of the room. As I walked through it, I idly wondered where Ralof had gone, since he had been neither of the Stormcloaks we had killed. I descended the stairs on the other side, down to a lower level of the tower.

Unfortunately, there were more Stormcloaks down there, and they charged us on sight. Less unfortunate, however, was the giant rockfall that happened, crushing them before they could reach us. Hadvar stared at the rubble for a minute, before shaking his head and turning to the door next to the rubble.

"Damn, that dragon doesn't give up easy." He commented, as he walked inside the room behind the door. _No, really?_ I thought, as I followed him in.

In yet another addition to my recent run of bad luck, there were a couple more Stormcloaks behind the door, and I yet again barely avoided having my face splattered all over the walls. Once again, I was able to burn the one attacking me to death as Hadvar slew the other. After verifying that neither of the defeated Stormcloaks had been carrying any money, I decided to loot the room, and see what I could find. Once again, to my surprise, Hadvar supported this.

"An old storeroom. See if you can find some potions, they might come in handy." After grabbing a small piece of bread from a nearby table (which I then ate. Seriously, the Legion needs to feed their prisoners better.) I proceeded to ransack more or less every barrel, cabinet, or other storage object I could find, but didn't manage to find anything worthwhile other that a little gold, and a few health potions I split between me and Hadvar, and a Magicka potion which I kept for myself. After stashing these somewhere I could grab them in a hurry if I need them, and setting up a small enchantment I could use to destroy the stopper for fast use, we walked through the exit of the room.

The passage out of the room was one of the less pleasant places I'd seen in this castle, and that's a very bad thing considering that the whole keep was moldy, dark and smelly. All of this still applied here, but there was something else. It smelled like blood, and you could hear screams from below. I had a bad feeling about this. Once again, I hate being right. Hadvar shook his head.

"The torture room. Gods, I wish we didn't need these." Oh, great, torture chambers. I was really hoping I'd never end up in one of these again. On the plus side, at least I was armed this time. I brightened up slightly at the thought that there might be some Thalmor there for me to kill, which would be great in two ways:

1. The Thalmor have very nice, very valuable gear, which I could sell

2. I get to kill Thalmor, which is, in every way, a public service. (Except that it probably counts as littering.)

We stepped into the room, which was currently filled with the chaos of battle. (Again. I was really starting to hate this place.), complete with a mage throwing lightning bolts at the attacking Stormcloaks. Considering his job, and the fact that he had likely been torturing their friends for a while now, I found it very difficult to feel any pity for him, so I more or less hung back out of the fight, only intervening briefly to light his shoes on fire at precisely the right time to move his head directly into the path of a swinging warhammer.. Whatever. I hate torturers. The last of the Stormcloaks soon fell, and Hadvar (and, for that matter, another Imperial who I could only assume had been the ex-torturer's assistant) showed an interesting lack of caring about the torturer's death, and fortunately, didn't seem to notice that I had caused his death. Hadvar turned to the assistant (which is what I will call him until I learn his name)

"We need to get moving. The entire keep's being destroyed." The assistant nodded.

"I'll come with you." _Great, we get to cart the war criminal around while we escape a small army of escaping rebels and a giant, fire-breathing lizard_ I thought. I then noticed something glorious-a spell tome inside one of the cells in a corner, next to an unpleasant-looking corpse. I tried to rip the cage open, but to my great disappointment, it was locked. Fortunately, I noticed a few small objects, which could be used as lockpicks on a table, next to a book about something called a "dragonborn" and a knapsack. After grabbing the few coins in the bag and placing them in mine (along with the book, which looked valuable) I picked up the lockpick, and turned to the cage, and began to wrestle with the lock. Hadvar shook his head and looked on in amusement, although I noticed he had found a bow and quiver somewhere in here. After a few minutes, during which I had, miraculously, managed not to break any of the picks, I was beginning to remember why I had hated lockpicking. Soon after, however, I heard that oh-so-glorious _click_ sound, and the lock opened. I walked into the cell, and picked up the book. I didn't recognize the spell described, and made a mental note to look over it when I had time. The robes on the corpse in the cage also looked magical, but I had no intention of taking the clothes off a partially decomposed corpse, let alone wearing them again. The gloves on the dead torturer, however, were much fresher, and I also didn't have much money to be choosy about this, so I slipped them off as well, and placed them in my pack. Hadvar and the assistant turned and walked down a hall on the other side of the room, with me following close behind.

Unfortunately for me, the horror show was not quite over yet, as I found to my disgust when I entered yet another nauseating room, this one full of corpses in cages, in various states of decay, from freshly dead to mere skeletons. At that point, I resolved to kill the assistant if I could. Something at the other end of the room made me even more nervous, a giant hole in the wall, bashed out what looked like some time ago. Which begged the question: who did that, and more importantly, were they going to try to kill me? The assistant seemed to know why it was there, since he just strolled through the hole like it was a doorway. (Either that, or he was just a bloody moron.) Either way, Hadvar followed close behind.

Fortunately for him, he wasn't first through, since the torturer's assistant, whose name I do not know to this day, took an arrow through his throat as soon as he reached the end of the hallway. While this was good for me, since, you know, he was evil; this was also a terrible thing, since it meant people trying to kill me.

Hadvar pulled out his bow and strung an arrow, and crept slowly around the corner. He peeked around, turned back to me, and held up five fingers. Great, there were five of them, and now just two of us. He fired into the room, but evidently missed, judging by his reaction. He had obviously caught the attention of the Stormcloaks, though, as he was soon fighting for his life against two of them, with two more charging. An archer sat in the back, evidently too worried about hitting her own to fire. _Let's hope this works_ I thought to myself, as I formed a sphere of red energy in my hands, and hurled it at one of the Stormcloaks. He froze in shock for a moment, his eyes glowing red, before the frenzy spell took effect, and he struck at the nearest thing to him, in this case his teammate. The archer's eyes widened in surprise a moment, before she recovered, and fired an arrow directly at my face, which I narrowly managed to dodge by diving to the lower floor of the cavern this battle was taking place in. I poked one of the gloves I had found up a small amount, and an arrow slammed into it, slashing my hand as it did. Swearing, I leapt to my feet, firing a jet of fire at her with my good hand, and igniting the pitch she had been foolish enough to stand in. She screamed and burned. I barely managed the weakest of healing spells (Restoration being an area where I am thoroughly incompetent) and the wound mostly closed, at least enough for me to stop bleeding all over the floor. I turned around, to see another legionnaire, who had come through a secret passage in the wall next to Hadvar, drop the last of the remaining Stormcloaks. She turned around, and I stared in shock. It was my arch-nemesis! The Imperial Captain from an hour ago! Her eyes widened in shock for a moment, then she spun around to face Hadvar.

"Traitor!" She struck at him, and he barely managed to block it.

"How dare you aid this, this SCUM!" She shouted, gesturing at me. Her and Hadvar dueled briefly, with me shooting rather weak and ineffectual (metal suits don't burn very easily) jets of flame at her. It soon became clear that, as useless as I was right now, Hadvar had no chance of survival. In desperation, I rifled through my pack, hoping to find something, anything, I could use to defeat her. As I tore through the assortment of random crap I had collected in the dungeon, I found the destruction spellbook from earlier. Quickly I flipped it open, hoping desperately it was something I could comprehend easily. It seemed to be a minor spell for producing lightning, not much different from the fire one I was now using. I picked up the knife I had found in the torturer's pack before, and hurled it at her.

"Hey, you!" She turned around, snarling, and the knife bounced handle first off of her helmet. Undeterred, I spat at her again, and it again flew right through the visor in her helmet. Now furious beyond all rational thought or sanity, she charged, sword raised in preparation to take my head off.

It probably would have killed me if I hadn't stepped to the side and electrocuted her. She stumbled and fell, twitching as the spell did its work.

"Good riddance." I snarled, as I spat in her eye a final time as she died. I tossed a health potion over to Hadvar, and bent down to loot her corpse. I took her boots and gloves to sell, and her helmet as a trophy. I also took her coin purse, and sword, which was better than the useless junk I already had. (Although, really, all swords were kind of useless to me.) Hadvar looked briefly like he would object to my looting her corpse, then decided not to bother. Gratitude is nice, and far too uncommon after you save people, I've found. I picked up my knife from where it had landed, and stashed it somewhere I could reach easily, an act that has saved my life many times. That done, I followed Hadvar up the stairs on the other side of the room.

At the top of the stairs was a drawbridge, up so that it could not be crossed, as well as a lever right next to it. I drew the obvious conclusion, and pulled the lever. Despite my hopes that it would summon me somewhere where there was a massive feast, and no one there was trying to kill me, it merely opened the bridge onward so we could move on.

Soon after we crossed it, there was a loud rumbling from above, and a large amount of rubble from the tower came crashing down on what had once been a bridge.

"Damn!" Hadvar swore, staring back at what would have hit us if we'd moved a little slower."Guess we can't go back that way now." _Why would we want to? _I thought as I followed him into and through a cave. After a brief detour where I found a small cash purse in a side tunnel (next to another corpse, the prevalence of which in this place was beginning to unnerve me) we proceeded through the tunnel, and into a large room…full of giant webs, as well as corpses of various species.

_Oh gods no, not giant spiders! Seriously?_

Unfortunately, it was, reinforcing my theory that some kind of universal or cosmic force really just hates me, as giant spiders began to scuttle out of the corners and from the ceiling. Hadvar pulled out his blade and began to fight, as I began pouring fire at the creatures. Unfortunately, I ran out of Magicka before I ran out of spiders, and one that remained began to close in on me. I drew the rather useless sword I had been carrying with me as a desperate, last-ditch effort, but it was soon knocked out of my hands. It looked like my death was upon me, but Hadvar spun around, and slew the creature.

"Thanks." I said, drinking a Magicka potion.

"Giant spiders" Hadvar grumbled to himself as I picked up my sword and we walked through the tunnel at the other end of the room. "What next, giant snakes?" _Hadvar! Stop tempting fate!_

We soon stepped into a large cavern-path, which was creepily quiet and empty. As I grabbed a coin purse out of an abandoned cart, I soon found out why, as I saw, not very far from me at all, a horrific, dangerous monster, a giant, furry avatar of death who could kill me as soon as look at me.

There was a **bear** in here.

Hadvar seemed more than a little amused by my reaction, looking like he was barely holding back a laugh..

'We should probably try to sneak past it" he said, turning to me. "Or, if you're feeling lucky, you can take this bow, maybe get a lucky shot." I nodded, took the bow, notched an arrow, and fired. Unfortunately, as I had absolutely no skill at archery whatsoever, I missed entirely, and woke the bear as well. Frantically, I dropped the bow, attempting to ready, but the creature was far faster than it looked, and I was slammed off my feet, crashing into the wall. The last thing I saw before the world faded to black was the bear standing over me. For it, dinner had arrived.

…

Yeah, I **definitely** wasn't doing that. I took the bow and arrows, and stashed them in my pack.

"We'll just sneak by it."I said. "Less chance of dying" We crouched down, and, making as little noise as possible, crept through the cave to a tunnel on the other side. Once we entered the tunnel, Hadvar turned and whispered to me.

"So, can I have my bow back?"

"Shhh, you'll wake the bear!" I whispered back, despite there not being much chance of that. In my defense, it was a nice bow. Then, finally, after what seemed an age of moving through the tunnel (it was probably more like five minutes, but, well, close enough) we saw something we had not seen ever since we walked into this tower-escape-tunnel-thing: sunlight. We were free.

"Thanks the gods!" Hadvar announced as we rounded a corner, and came into sight of the exit. "I was beginning to think we'd never get out of here." At this point, I looked around nervously, waiting for something to notice he had said that, and respond by killing us. Fortunately, nothing did, and the dragon was flying off as we exited, and did not see us. We were free! (Or so I thought at the time, anyway, nothing's ever that simple).


End file.
